Back in August of this year I published a piece "Donald Trump's Biggest Con" (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/08/donald-trumps-biggest-con.html). Well, the Con Job worked and Donald Trump is President-Elect.
A large group of supporters of Donald Trump seem to be white working men. They love when he says he is going to export millions of illegals from this country, that he is going to build a wall on the southern border (not a fence). They howl when he says he is going to "lock her up (Hillary)." They applaud hysterically when he says he wants to bar all Muslims from entering this country.
But they ignore it when he said the American worker's wages are too high on the Fox News debate of November 10, 2015.* When asked about this the next morning on Morning Joe, he replied, "We have to become competitive with the world. Our taxes are too high, our wages are too high. Everything is too high. We have to compete with other countries."** Joe Biden even made a point of Trump mentioning this in a speech in his home town of Scranton, PA.**
Maybe these white male workers don't care about wages and only want the emotional highs that satisfy the soul. Maybe. I doubt it, but they weren't listening. I think they are going to be disappointed.
Andy Puzder last March wrote an article printed in the WSJ about restaurant automation.*** I find the article to be very good in general, though he seems unaware of just how much automation could replace in the fast-food business.
They bread chicken tenders by hand, prepare complex burger orders, hand-scoop the ice cream for milkshakes, ... the company I lead, our Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s employees make biscuits from scratch. and the restaurants offer table service. None of these tasks can be effectively automated, and we wouldn’t want them to be.
Of course you could automate making biscuits, bread chicken tenders and scoop ice cream, and they might even be better than doing these things by hand. I am not enamored with "hand made." I was in a restaurant once that advertised hand-made lamb patties. I told the waitress that I preferred machine made, but will take hand made if that is the only choice. But maybe others that are attracted by "hand made." I knew a store owner once who insisted that listing an item as $1.99 instead of $2.00 made a difference in sales.
Incidentally Puzder mentions Eatsa automated restaurants, but these have a very restricted menu. These are not an upgrade to the old Automat chain. Only dishes with Quinoa are served at the Eatsa restaurants. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I was in a Automat**** in 1940 as a child and found it to be lots of fun. The chain has never really taken off, however.
* http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-wages-too-high
** http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-wages-are-too-high-2015-11 https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/biden-trump-says-american-workers-wages-are-too-high/2016/11/06/d109ac0a-a450-11e6-ba46-53db57f0e351_video.html
*** http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-restaurant-automation-is-on-the-menu-1458857730
**** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/03/restaurants-going-fully-automatic.html
Showing posts with label Joe Biden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Biden. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2016
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
WHEN REALITY ISN'T ENOUGH
I suppose that all of us have embellished our lives at some time to some extent, but, if you are a celebrity, it can have severe consequences when found out. The latest to fall prey to this is Brian Williams who is the anchor and managing editor of NBC nightly news, now suspended without pay for six months for embellishing his memories of a helicopter flight in Vietnam during the war.* The problem isn't that he said this once, it is that he has repeatedly said it. And now there are questions about his exploits in Hurricane Katrina, and Israel's war with Hezbollah and even his account of being held at gun point in his youth. Brian Williams is hardly alone on this problem and I'll give three famous examples.
Consider Vice-President Joe Biden . His run for the Democratic Presidential nominee became unraveled when it was revealed that he had plagiarized 5 of the 15 page report: A few days later, Biden's plagiarism incident in law school came to public light.[26] Video was also released showing that when earlier questioned by a New Hampshire resident about his grades in law school, Biden had stated that he had graduated in the "top half" of his class, that he had attended law school on a full scholarship, and that he had received three degrees in college,[25][78] each of which were untrue or exaggerations of his actual record.[25] ** He did graduate from the University of Delaware with one degree in a double major of history and political science, and he did get a law degree from Syracuse University where he apparently had his expenses covered in various ways but had only a half time scholarship rather than a full scholarship. But reality was not enough.
Then there is Mike Barnicle who had a 25 yr career with the Boston Globe ended by an accusation of plagiarism over some jokes from a 1977 book by John Carin called "Brain Droppings." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Barnicle). I am happy to say that he has made a nice recovery, and I often see him on Morning Joe.
Lastly , let's look at Doris Kearns Goodwin, a Pulitzer Prize winning political historian, accused of lifting passages from three other books without quotation marks though she did cite the sources.*** Nonetheless, she lost her position on the PBS NewsHour. She too is making a nice comeback.
I do have questions, however, about "big business' writers who have researchers and other helpers who sometimes even do part or all of the writing and are lucky if they get an acknowledgement. Not surprisingly, the CEO, author, of this group can "write" many books compared to those who do it all themselves. But I have written elsewhere on this sort of thing and will not repeat it other than to say that movies give the best recognition, and I think the automobile companies give none at all except for the patron (the company name):.**** Also, I was surprised in finding two cases where authors were sued for plagiarizing themselves (!) because it is the publisher who holds the copyright of published papers and not the author.
* For a sympathetic account of these questions, see" http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/10/brian-williams-rescue-plan-crumbles-as-friends-plead-for-mercy/.
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin
**** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/06/credit.html
Consider Vice-President Joe Biden . His run for the Democratic Presidential nominee became unraveled when it was revealed that he had plagiarized 5 of the 15 page report: A few days later, Biden's plagiarism incident in law school came to public light.[26] Video was also released showing that when earlier questioned by a New Hampshire resident about his grades in law school, Biden had stated that he had graduated in the "top half" of his class, that he had attended law school on a full scholarship, and that he had received three degrees in college,[25][78] each of which were untrue or exaggerations of his actual record.[25] ** He did graduate from the University of Delaware with one degree in a double major of history and political science, and he did get a law degree from Syracuse University where he apparently had his expenses covered in various ways but had only a half time scholarship rather than a full scholarship. But reality was not enough.
Then there is Mike Barnicle who had a 25 yr career with the Boston Globe ended by an accusation of plagiarism over some jokes from a 1977 book by John Carin called "Brain Droppings." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Barnicle). I am happy to say that he has made a nice recovery, and I often see him on Morning Joe.
Lastly , let's look at Doris Kearns Goodwin, a Pulitzer Prize winning political historian, accused of lifting passages from three other books without quotation marks though she did cite the sources.*** Nonetheless, she lost her position on the PBS NewsHour. She too is making a nice comeback.
I do have questions, however, about "big business' writers who have researchers and other helpers who sometimes even do part or all of the writing and are lucky if they get an acknowledgement. Not surprisingly, the CEO, author, of this group can "write" many books compared to those who do it all themselves. But I have written elsewhere on this sort of thing and will not repeat it other than to say that movies give the best recognition, and I think the automobile companies give none at all except for the patron (the company name):.**** Also, I was surprised in finding two cases where authors were sued for plagiarizing themselves (!) because it is the publisher who holds the copyright of published papers and not the author.
* For a sympathetic account of these questions, see" http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/10/brian-williams-rescue-plan-crumbles-as-friends-plead-for-mercy/.
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin
**** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/06/credit.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
